From Press Release: There’s time for everything in Camelot, including love – particularly when Arthur, Guinevere and a visiting princess are looking for it in all the wrong places, which they most certainly do in “Sweet Dreams,” an all-new episode of Merlin that debuts at 10 p.m. Friday, June 11 only on Syfy.
“It was time to just shake it up a bit and have some fun in Camelot,” says Merlin executive producer Johnny Capps. “We wanted to do a sort of romantic comedy. We looked at a lot of Shakespeare plays, like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with a love potion confusing people, (making them think) someone is somebody else – those great romantic-comedy plot devices. We thought, let’s get some of those and have some fun with it and see Arthur enchanted and falling in love with completely the wrong person.”
Love actually is the outcome of a desire to bring about war in “Sweet Dreams” as dignitaries from five neighboring kingdoms arrive in Camelot to sign a peace treaty with King Uther. King Alined is among them, and he has more nefarious plans.
“I have a very underhanded motivation,” says actor David Schofield, a veteran of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. “I want there to be war, not peace at all – so together with my trusted jester, Trickler, who’s also a magician, we try to make things a little difficult for everybody.”
The plan is for Trickler (played by British comedian Kevin Eldon) to cast a spell of love over Merlin and Lady Vivian, daughter of the over-protective King Olaf. “Lady Vivian is a bit of a spoiled brat,” says actress Georgia Moffett, who delivers a delightful comedic performance in the episode. “Arthur is not even on her radar, and then she gets put under a spell by Trickler and she falls madly in love with Arthur.”
Arthur, meanwhile, is also under the spell – and when it is discovered, the love connection threatens to undo the peace treaty … and leads to a tense sword-and-mace battle between Olaf and Arthur.
But there’s another complication: When Arthur asks for Merlin’s help to declare his love, Merlin quite understandably assumes it’s Guinevere, not the bratty Lady Vivian, who’s the intended. The resulting love triangle may have long-lasting consequences.
“Everything is against (Arthur and Guinevere) in a sort of Romeo and Juliet way,” Capps explains. “The challenge for us, and what we’re working on at the moment, is how we create a will-they-or-won’t-they situation and keep the audience wanting them to get together.” It’s a love that ancient myth says is fated, and Merlin takes it to a new level of romanticism.
But first, there’s the little matter of a love potion, a power-hungry king and a horrifically behaved maiden. See how it all plays out in “Sweet Dreams,” the all-new episode of Merlin that premieres at 10 p.m. this Friday, June 11, only on Syfy.
And don’t miss out on an opportunity to win a piece of Merlin for
yourself in Syfy’s Merlin Red Scarf Sweepstakes, with a grand prize of a signed script, a season 1 DVD … and the red scarf worn by Colin Morgan in the series! Enter at: www.syfy.com/merlin/sweepstakes
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